Expert Guidance for Navigating Layoffs and Transitions With Career Coach Dawn Pinkney

March 19, 2024

Expert Guidance for Navigating Layoffs and Transitions With Career Coach Dawn Pinkney

Dawn Pinkney is a Career and Executive Coach and the Founder of Marjorie Dawn Coaching, where she provides life coaching services to professionals, empowering them to perform at their best. With over 25 years of experience in the games industry, Dawn has worked extensively in production with renowned teams, contributing to the creation and publication of successful video games for companies like 2K, Activision Blizzard, Capcom, and Wargaming. Her impressive portfolio includes collaborations on beloved franchises such as James Bond, Skylanders, World of Tanks, PGA Tour, and Lego. In addition to her coaching endeavors, Dawn hosts the Hero of Circumstance podcast, offering honest conversations about surviving layoffs and career transitions for those impacted.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

Dawn Pinkney discusses her coaching business, Marjorie Dawn Coaching
What is a life coach, and how can people benefit from this guidance?
Dawn’s advice for individuals making career changes
How Dawn leverages her executive producer background in her coaching practice
Techniques for managing stress in the workplace
Career challenges and strategies for overcoming them
Transitioning clearly and intentionally to articulate your desires to others
Dawn’s advice for setting personal and career goals
The inspiration behind Dawn’s podcast, Hero of Circumstance
Dawn’s insights on entrepreneurship

In this episode…

Navigating a layoff or career transition can be daunting. How can the guidance of a life and career coach make a difference?

Executive coach Dawn Pinkney emphasizes that life coaches offer personalized support and guidance to individuals seeking clarity and direction. These trained professionals help clients set and achieve personal and professional goals, overcome challenges, and navigate life transitions. Working with a life and career coach like Dawn provides individuals with the tools and strategies they need to overcome career challenges with confidence and resilience. Whether it's navigating a layoff, transitioning to a new career, or setting and achieving personal and professional goals, coaches empower individuals to succeed.

Tune in to the latest episode of the Here’s Waldo Podcast, where host Lizzie Mintus chats with Dawn Pinkney, Founder of Marjorie Dawn Coaching, about navigating layoffs and career transitions. Dawn highlights the advantages of life coaching, offers strategies for overcoming job challenges and workplace stress, and shares the inspiration behind her podcast, Hero of Circumstance.

Resources Mentioned in this episode

Sponsor for this episode...

This episode is brought to you by Here’s Waldo Recruiting, a boutique recruitment firm specializing in the video game industry that prioritizes quality over quantity and values transparency, communication, and diversity. We partner with companies, creatives, and programmers to understand the why behind their needs and provide a white-glove experience that ensures a win-win outcome.

The industry evolves. The market changes. But at Here’s Waldo Recruiting, our commitment to happy candidates and clients does not.

We understand that searching for the best and brightest talent can be overwhelming, so let our customer-first staff of professionals do the leg work for you by heading over to hereswaldorecruiting.com.

Episode Transcript

Welcome to the Here's Waldo Podcast, where we sit down with top visionaries and creatives in the video game industry. Together we'll unravel their journeys and learn more about the path they're forging ahead. Now, let's get started with the show.

Lizzie Mintus: I'm Lizzie Mintus, founder and CEO of Here's Waldo Recruiting, a boutique video game recruitment firm. This is the Here's Waldo Podcast. In every episode, we dive deep into conversations with creatives, founders, and executives about what it takes to be successful. You can expect to hear valuable lessons from their journey and get a glimpse into the future of the industry.

This episode is brought to you by Here's Waldo Recruiting, a boutique recruitment firm for the game industry. We value quality over quantity, transparency, communication, and diversity. We partner with companies, creatives and programmers to understand the why behind their needs.

Before introducing today's guest, I want to give a big thank you to Alex Brazy. You are such a great connector and I had a lot of fun with you at GamesBeat. So thank you for connecting us today.

We have Dawn Pinkney with us. Dawn is a gaming coach. She is the founder of Marjorie Dawn Coaching, providing life coaching services to professionals to support them to play at their best. She is also the host of Hero Circumstance, the podcast about honest conversation around going through a layoff for people who have been impacted. That'll be a good one for my listeners. She's a games industry veteran and executive of 25 plus years. She's worked in production with awesome teams, supporting them to create and publish amazing video games such as 2K, Activision Blizzard, Capcom, Wargaming on franchises such as James Bond, Skylanders, World of Tanks, PGA Tour, and Lego.

Let's get started. Thank you for being here.

Dawn Pinkney: Thank you, Lizzie. It's a pleasure. And thank you to Alex as well. He's a super connector. He was awesome at GamesBeat. I saw him in motion connecting multiple people and ensuring everyone got the best out of the show. So that was great. And yeah, glad that he connected us both as well.

Lizzie Mintus: He was sweet. I met him and then within three minutes, I have someone I want to connect you to. Great. You're my people. Awesome. Congrats on starting your coaching business. Can you please share a little bit more about it?

Dawn Pinkney: Thank you. Oh my gosh. Sure. It was a journey to get to actually starting it. It began obviously with my career in video games. I've always been passionate about working with teams and people to help them get to a place where they were delivering at their best on the video games, the projects, and over time, I had my own personal growth and journey of growth with just becoming more aware, more tuned in to having a better lifestyle through appreciation and love and gratitude and all of that and, not being so reactive and stressed because, as working in video games is very high intensity, even though it's passionate. It was a combination of my love of working with people, then my own journey of self growth, that then further enhanced my love of working with people.

My job, it really was what drove me every day. It was just turning up for my teams and engaging them. Things just started to fall into place. And I started to realize that I would love to be a life coach. So I started studying in the evenings on top of my intense executive career. I was studying for a couple of years and. That was the journey to me starting my business.

Lizzie Mintus: Congrats. I love when businesses start from all the things you love and going the extra mile. I think a lot of people are maybe not familiar with a life coach or a coach in general. It's a newer thought to many people. Can you please share a bit more about what it is that you really do, how you work with people?

Dawn Pinkney: Yeah, I would absolutely love to share that. And also what you just said there about businesses starting, from growth and what you love to do, I had all these ideas along the way when I knew that I wanted to be a business owner and be my own boss. But nothing ever stuck because it wasn't my passion. It wasn't my gift. And that's why when this all fell into place, it just, I knew it was right. I knew it was what I was meant to be doing. It's my a service.

So life coaching, I'll tell you what it's not. It's not telling you what to do. I don't tell people what to do and I don't give advice. And I don't talk that much either in a session, which is the interesting thing. You would think with life coaching that you're Mr. Motivator or Mrs. Motivator, telling people like how to live their lives better and all of that. It's not about that.

If you were to come to me, I would create this space where we would create the space of awareness, whether you've got an obstacle or something that you want to achieve, not resonating in your life, or maybe you've just got like a long term plan, whatever it is, I'm going to talk to you about it, and I'm going to ask you questions in a way that will open up your awareness about whatever it is. So your focus is less narrow. And then through that awareness comes the awareness of all the multitude of things that you could be doing to move yourself forwards. That's the essence of it. The questions, the awareness, there are techniques that I have to draw out plans and actions and open up awareness even more.

And coaching is goal orientated. So yes, I'm a sounding board. I cover your blind spots in that regard. And I also move things forwards towards an action. It's a little bit different to therapy where you might just be focusing on the past life coaching is very much in the present and moving forward with action. So I'm an accountability partner, but I'm not a drill sergeant. I will hold you accountable to what you want to be held accountable to. And life happens and you didn't achieve that's fine. We'll just talk about that and move forward with what does work. That's what it's about- the individual because there is no one, one method works for all. Everyone's different, right? Everyone's situation is different and how they would like to handle it and the actions that they would like to take that fit their daily schedule is different. It's all about the individual and nothing to do with me telling you what you should be doing. Although, but I do have tips if they are needed.

Lizzie Mintus: I bet that's a pretty common misconception. Like I'm going to come work with you. You're my life coach. You're going to create my life journey for me. Who's a good candidate for a life coach? Who is your ideal client? Is it somebody that wants to develop a plan and goals or has them already? Is it specifically people in games?

Dawn Pinkney: Honestly, anyone is a client because I have different clients with different goals and needs. So within gaming, ideal clients is anyone going through a career transition, and that can be a layoff or just looking to expand into something different and anyone that just wants help with performance at work and achieve being more strategic and achieving goals. Because right now, things are intense. If you've got a job, it's super intense because of what's going on in the work environment with the layoffs and everyone's working extra long, hard days to keep those jobs. I definitely help with that or just being more strategic and on your game in general with your career. So definitely in the video games realm, but high performers can still benefit from a coach.

It is just, again, like I said, opening up the awareness, covering the blind spots, helping you to discover, oh, okay, I can take these actions to accomplish what it is that I need. Or it could be you're not a high performer and you want to be right. It can be career. It can be personal life. It can be all of that. I have coaches. You have to be a client right when you're in business. And yeah, I have a business coach and I have a mindfulness coach and I couldn't get by without that. Even though I'm a coach and I know all this stuff. It still always helps to talk with somebody else to open up that awareness.

Lizzie Mintus: I also have a coach and I have so many people that I ask questions to all the time. You do need that different perspective. And I like my coach. I respect my coach. I would say maybe I'm a little bit scared. I don't want to disappoint my coach.

Let's say you want to get in shape, right? I'll sign up for a gym membership. I don't really care. I'm not going to go, not me personally, but people in general. But if you sign up for a trainer, you feel a little bit more indebted. So I like to have someone and I like to have someone in pain because it just makes me more accountable personally.

Dawn Pinkney: Yeah, I'm glad that's working for you.

Lizzie Mintus: Yeah, I think that most anybody can benefit from it really, but I don't do sports, I don't play sports. I don't watch sports, that's just not an innate capability of mine. So I think if you come from really a sports background, you would have a lot more insight as to coaching and what they can do.

But maybe if you don't play or watch sports as much. It might not be as common of a concept, but hopefully more and more. I want to talk about career changes cause that's your area of expertise. Can you talk about making your career change and what advice you give to people who are making a career change?

Dawn Pinkney: Good question. Mine was a journey and it was really hard because I knew that I wanted to do it. I just didn't know what I wanted to do. And I feel like I did all the practical work. I went and saw a career coach actually.

What am I good at? What are my strengths? What are my passions? I read all the books on being an entrepreneur and starting your own business. I did all the research about having an online business and doing SEO and all those things. I was looking outside of myself. I was constantly looking out. 'cause I'm like, what do I do? I don't know how, and going to these other places.

When I gave up and I stopped and I just started following my intuition and going with the flow of where my passion was. Everything fell into place. That's how life coaching fell into place. It really was just not putting all that energy into looking and just letting it emerge, by following what I was passionate about. What I'm passionate about is, I do a lot of personal development. I'm constantly, as you may be aware, given you're a entrepreneur yourself, but just listening to podcasts and watching documentaries and reading and listening to books and talking with people in the community and networking. There's just so much. And I feel just being in that flow of learning, that's how it all fell into place for me. So that personally is how the career transition happens.

Lizzie Mintus: I like what you said about flow. I've been thinking about that a lot and how you can get in to your flow state, and noticing when you're in your flow state, what's working and giving you energy and what's not.

Dawn Pinkney: Exactly. It's that noticing when there's resistance or stress. If you feel like you're forcing it too much, just take a step back. It applies to being in business as well. That's one of the things that I love about being in business. What I get to employ every day for myself is being in flot.

I have my mornings where I normally focus on something creative because my, that's where my mind is at its best, like inspirations, ideas, whatever it is. And then the rest of the day, there'll be tasks that I know, I don't need to think about that too much. So I'm not gonna put my time into it in the morning, but what I love is. This isn't feeling good right now. I feel like I'm having to push this too much, so I'm just going to step away from it, and I'm going to do what's feeling good right now. You would never be able to do that in a company.

Lizzie Mintus: Yeah, that's true. I have an entrepreneur friend I admire, and my coach tells me this too. You can have four quadrants. Here are the things I like and I'm good at. Here are the things I don't like and I'm good at. Here are the things I have to do and I'm bad at. And here are the things I'm not good at and I don't like to do. And then you can figure out, okay, I need to give away the things that I don't like to do and I'm not good at first, right? And obviously as a business owner, you're going to call different states to get different tax numbers and do awful stuff like that for a while. For me, that's awful, but not for everyone.

Dawn Pinkney: Absolutely. Yeah, definitely with the minutiae, but just also sometimes with strategies that I have. I'm like, this isn't working. It's not what I expected. I feel like I'm having to force this too much. So I'm just going to step away and I'm going to do something else. And then maybe something will come back at me. I guess it's the, What is it? Universal law, right? If you're like putting too much force into something, you can be pushing it away. Physics.

Lizzie Mintus: True. I hadn't thought about it like that. Can you talk a little bit more about your journey to be an executive producer and how that correlates to what you're doing now?

Dawn Pinkney: Yeah, absolutely. As you noted in my introduction there, I started just over 25 years ago in the industry, back when computers weren't mainstream. I was interested in computers. I was doing temping work as a secretary and I love computers. So I went to night school which is a thing back then, and I did a programming qualification, and then I used that qualification to join the video games industry, because I had a history of beating my brothers at video games when I was younger. So I knew I was good at them.

And at that time, especially like I didn't have programming experience. I just had the qualifications, so a recruitment agency recommended to me to leverage what the experience that I do have, which was admin and go in the door in that fashion. So I joined my first gaming company as an office manager. They took me on because I had the technical side, and the technical director was on board for training me and bringing me into the programming team, but I just decided seeing the whole dynamic of how that company operated and the different roles, I just loved multitasking, producing. It's just so dynamic because it's different at every stage of the project. So I got into that more.

Although I will say, at that time, there weren't that many women in the industry and it was so easy to get pigeonholed. I was pigeonholed in an admin role. And I didn't get out of office management for seven years. I worked two development companies and they were small. So an element of it was, there just wasn't the room to grow, but also it was just super hard to get away from being a woman who does admin. Back in those days, being secretary was still a big job for a woman. So yeah, it took me seven years and I didn't give up. I really wanted to get into a publisher and I just knew. This is what I want to do. I can do it. I'm great at it. When I did, my career just took off actually, like from that point forwards, I just kept going through really great games and projects.

And I recognized that I wanted to move around with my career as well and that I had to be super good for a company to invest in that. So I had a goal that I'm just gonna work my ass off to get to that place. And I did. And when I got to that place, I had the luxury of big companies in the industry, relocating me. I've lived in Vancouver, BC, and then I've been moved to Santa Monica in California, San Francisco in California. And now I have the luxury of living in Napa, which is wonderful. I had a green card, I'm an American citizen. I have so much gratitude to the video games industry for not only giving me such an interesting career and all the people that I've met and worked with, but just being able to move around and now be in the situation where I'm an American citizen and being a homeowner. All those benefits that have come from my career.

Lizzie Mintus: Congrats. And anybody you meet anywhere thinks it's so cool that you work in video games.

Dawn Pinkney: Yes, always. There was a time when I would get annoyed with it, so I wouldn't say what I did. I would just say, Oh yeah, I'm in tech. I'd keep it under wraps because I just knew that, like I said, I was explaining about my personal growth journey. Why wouldn't I say, why wouldn't I engage with people? They find it interesting. So why wouldn't I talk to them about that? So anyway, I've changed now I've grown up. I absolutely tell people and talk with them about it and if they want help or mentorship, I give it to them.

Lizzie Mintus: Yeah. I tell people and they have all kinds of different reactions, but I think Maybe I tell people that I want to engage with, but I don't necessarily want to engage with all strangers,

Dawn Pinkney: yeah. With a recruitment company as well, that can be a good strategy for you to tell a lot of people.

Lizzie Mintus: Oh, definitely. But I think it's funny anytime I if I'm out and people aren't in the industry specifically, they're always like, Oh my sister in law is a nurse. Could you help her get a job? I'm like, oh, I just do video games, maybe help you locate someone who might be a good recruiter on LinkedIn. It's just a little bit different.

Dawn Pinkney: One of the things I love is, obviously every, as everyone thinks that we play games all day and it's fun, which it is. It's also really intense. I also think that people don't really get what we do. On a day to day basis. I certainly know as a producer, like it is comparable to a product manager, or it is comparable to a project manager, but it's also comparable to a general manager. Who's managing a business, right? You're a business owner as an executive producer and there's a lot of stake with the creativity of the game and then just working on a game project.

It's not like working on a building project or working on a general software project. It's just so dynamic with everything shifting and changing and pivoting based on the game as it's taking shape. It really is unique. So it's just one of those things like within the games industry, we all get it.

Actually someone I spoke to recently, she actually paraphrased it in a good way. She said, cause I was explaining what I did as an executive producer previously. And she said, it sounds like you're in the emergency room. That's it.

Lizzie Mintus: I've never heard it like that. And you have to have so much collaboration in games too. Everybody has to work together so much more than I feel like in other industries.

Dawn Pinkney: Yeah. And that has grown as well, Lizzie. Back in the day, there weren't so many different departments. The budget when it wasn't as big so there wasn't as many people working on the games. I mean it's expanded so much so for your communication the amount of different people in different departments, you have to communicate with on a daily basis is definitely grown a lot, which adds to the intensity.

Lizzie Mintus: Yeah. Can you talk about managing intensity in the workplace, but if you're making a game or if you're in tech. What do you employ to be your best self at work?

Dawn Pinkney: I just took a deep breath there as you were asking me that. And funny because I would say, keep breathing. That's number one. The thing that you can do is breathe because it just it's almost like a reboot, just taking a nice big, deep breath in. When it just relaxes you, it relaxes your body because when you're caught up in the intensity of the work environment, your mind's worrying, you're multitasking, you've got all these notifications boom. You're in a Zoom. You're slacking on the side. You're on the side, and you're talking to people. You're giving direction. Whatever it is, there's just so much going on and it's just constant. It just doesn't stop.

Back a few years ago, you wouldn't have all those Zooms. You would be able to step away from your desk from a meeting and have a bit of downtime almost and conversation. And that has gone now. And so I just say, like taking little breathing breaks. Breathe in between your zooms. Take a breath. Because one thing that used to get me through is if I knew I had a really big day ahead of me big meetings. I had to give a presentation. It's easy to start getting overwhelmed in your head and be like, Oh my God. And I was like, you know what, as long as I keep breathing, I can absolutely get through the day. So that's a major tool.

The other one I would say is being aware of tension in your body. Now it's hard. This is something I became aware of and I'm still working on because it happens to all of us. We all hold tension in different ways. I realized that for years, unbeknownst to me, I had been clenching my belly. Like I'd been holding it tensely when I was in meetings, conversations, or somebody would ask me something and I'd tense before I spoke. With that intensity, I feel like you're just like operating in this high energy level, this high frequency, and you hold tension, you just don't realize it to get through it, because it's a lot.

So again, with just taking those moments to relax, just be aware of that tension, because relaxing that it's just going to help you be in a better place throughout the day. So you're not doing that damage throughout. Imagine your day, the difference between holding your body in tension all day versus relaxing your muscles. That's going to make a big difference all around.

And then I'd say also, what I found useful for myself is taking time out in the morning to have a morning routine. Your morning routine could be one minute of self time to mine's longer.

Lizzie Mintus: I have a one year old and a three year old. So my mornings are a bit chaotic. You're right. You can still take time out or do your meditation app or cold plunge.

Dawn Pinkney: Exactly. This is where it comes down to the individual. Exactly what you just said there. So working as a team to figure out what can you do? What can you do to get you in a good place? For me, it was the morning. Maybe for you, it's at some other point during the day. But what I was doing by taking that time for myself is, I'm focusing on me and I'm strengthening my mindset and my resilience to then go and handle everything that's going on. And I'm showing up from this place of, cause I feel good about myself. I just spend time on myself. Now I can give that energy to other people, especially in a leadership role. Those are some key ways that I would handle it. Obviously, there's a whole load of things that you can be doing throughout the day. And as I said, everybody's different. Everybody's going to find different things, relax them as well.

Lizzie Mintus: Do you recommend any particular app or maybe scheduling means? Because I know even personally today is a great example. I have meetings from 7am to 5pm. I have small breaks. I have half an hour here and there, but it's not really right. So if somebody has a day that's back to back, which happens, or let's say you're working and your game's coming out soon and you have to hit your deadline and you're probably crunching, even though the studio said you're not crunching, you're crunching.

How can you make time for yourself in those kinds of circumstances?

Dawn Pinkney: Definitely the breathing, like stick a note somewhere in your environment, because you have back to back meetings, but a minute is a long time. A whole 60 seconds to just, have a little step away, especially like stepping away, like not looking at the screen for a minute can be really helpful. That's one thing.

And then it really depends. If you get into that mindset of just one minute, then you can expand from that. I would say, what do you like to do to relax, right? Because it might be that you find making a cup of tea and therapeutic. So maybe we could do some habit stacking where you go and make that cup of tea and we add on like you, you listen to something during that one minute or you meditate or whatever it is. Habit stacking is a good way of finding what it is you are spending your time on and just adding things on top of that.

But yeah, it's definitely a mindset because I'd say the biggest thing is you just get caught up thinking there's not enough time. There's not enough time. I don't have enough time for myself. I think it was the Dalai Lama has a famous quote about, if you think you don't have time to meditate, you need to go and meditate some more. And it's so true because we've all got the same amount of time and we all make our choices on how we fill it. We are in control of how we fill our time. It can be filled with so many things. I think getting into that mindset of there's so much I can do with, but just one minute. And I know you have a young family, so that's really hard. But also I'd say that's beautiful because when you're with your young family, you're probably very in the moment and feeling a lot of love and maybe some stress when they're not behaving themselves, but that's a good thing, right? And maybe recognizing that. So when you do spend that time you're in that moment more of, oh, wow, this is so cool. Anyway, it's a short answer to your question is it depends on the person and what they've got going on and yeah, and what's going to work for them.

Lizzie Mintus: I like what you said about habit stacking. I like the book Atomic Habits a lot and thinking about what habits you have and you can brush your teeth and then after you brush your teeth, you're triggered right after you do it so many times like now I'm gonna I don't know meditate for a minute or make tea or whatever it is that makes you relax.

Dawn Pinkney: Yeah, or say some affirmations to get that confidence back up because that can come down a lot in the work environment because you're just reacting to what's coming at you externally all the time, and you might lose a bit of confidence or you're like, Oh my gosh, why did they say that in that meeting? Were they thinking this? Sometimes ways to boost your confidence can also be a good refresher during the day.

Lizzie Mintus: Yeah, definitely. What would you say some common challenges people navigate in their careers and what strategies can they use to overcome challenges?

Dawn Pinkney: Sure. I say careers in general, it's very easy. I've been there, you just You get sucked into what you're doing with the company and putting the company's needs first and not necessarily thinking strategically about yourself. And I say this because I've been there. That's what I did. I would get caught up with the company and then have the rug pulled out from under me when there's a workforce reduction or they're closing the company down.

So I think not being on autopilot, starting to think strategically and putting yourself first. That would be a big one for your career in general. Having that vision of why you're at the place that you're at now and what the next step is. I'd say the other common thing that happens is, again, getting so caught up in your job that you're not taking the time out to network for yourself.

I know obviously with your business, you're out there networking, right? It's part of it and it's part of mine now, but quite often, I'd be so caught up. I wouldn't go to GDC. I wouldn't be as active on LinkedIn. I wouldn't be out networking and I should have been because you are your brand. You may be representing a company, but you should be thinking about yourself as well. So I think that's a general thing in careers.

And then with layoffs, I guess there's a few areas there. There's that reset of creating that plan is an area. You really want to make sure that you're just not just reacting and going to the next job and just taking a step back, having a plan and dealing with it as well, like dealing with the loss of it. You just lost something that you love, because a career in gaming is a passion. So that's really hard to deal with. You could be experiencing a lot of self doubt, confidence issues because you got laid off. You're not realizing like the successful person that you are that has gotten this far. So focusing on those areas and work that can help get you through those areas and then setting up daily routines, daily habits, all those things to keep you in a good place. And yeah, I think those are all good things for careers in general and career transitions.

Lizzie Mintus: I did a LinkedIn live event with Bernie Yee, who's a fun and hilarious person and he was a producer for a very long time. And he said that he would keep a little journal and anytime anything would go well at work or he'd have a big accomplishment he would write it down in his journal so later he could put it into his resume or when somebody asked him during the interview about his accomplishments he could easily look back at it and I really like that. I think that's a nice way to remind yourself of all the positive things that you do

Dawn Pinkney: Yeah, absolutely. I really love that. I journal myself. I journal for different reasons, but I love keeping that catalog because you do forget and then you're adrift, right? And you're a bit lost you forget a lot of the things that you accomplished.

I think also just going back and having to think about a time when you were just in your element and thriving. When was the last time you really loved what you were doing? Because quite often when we're laid off, we may be in a place where we're not as happy and we were just like holding on. That can happen. So going back to that moment where you really felt good about yourself and what you were doing, and just like bringing that off power of yourself to get your confidence as well.

Lizzie Mintus: That's true. Like you said, you're working somewhere, you're in a rut, maybe you're in your routine and you're not really thinking outside of the box, but when you're laid off It is an opportunity to reinvent yourself or figure out what you want.

I like what you said about taking some time, because I think so many people get laid off and then like nightmare situation, get laid off, start applying for jobs right away, but you don't have a plan, you're in a bad headspace, you haven't thought about what you want, so it's really important. From a recruiting and my personal career outlook is to really have a plan, like hey, here's, here are the companies I want to work for. Here are the things that I care about in my job search. I care about the values of the company, I care about money. I care about working remotely. I care about the type of game and getting really clear on that.

I did a LinkedIn live this morning with Amir Saatvaat and we chatted about how it's like dating, right? You've been broken up with, right? Let's say you just, you got dumped, you got divorced and now you're on the market and you're going out and you're just saying, I just want to date anybody. I'm just open. I'm open to date. It's same feeling, right? And so it's really important to think, yes, what do I really want? And then you can tell that person or that company, I want you. And they'll feel good. They're not gross.

Dawn Pinkney: Yeah. That's a fun analogy. Yeah. Cause you did get broken up with, it's a loss. It really is a loss. There's stuff to process there.

Lizzie Mintus: What about career transitions? I know from my end, I think I see that people maybe have a hard time articulating about the career transition they want to make. People can't connect the dots, right? Like you're a producer, but you want to become an engineer and you've actually taken all these classes, but you don't put that on your resume. Nobody gets it.

So how can people make the transition intentionally and with clarity, show other people what it is they want and be clear about that. Clear about themselves, with themselves first.

Dawn Pinkney: In a scenario like that, if I was working with someone, we would create a plan. The long term objective is to get there. It comes down to a number of things like, what's the objective? How will you know when you've achieved success? What do you have now that's going to get you there? What attributes do you have? What characteristics do you have? What don't you have? What else do you need to do? What are some daily actions that you can start doing to move that forward?

So it would be creating a plan around it and obviously working on your communication of it would be an aspect of that, right? I would work with somebody, I could be their sounding board on how they're going to articulate it. I've interviewed a lot of people in my career, so I know what is going to come across well as an interviewer, as I'm sure you do as well, Lizzie.

So just working with somebody to get that pitch right and figure out like why are they doing this and why is it of value to the company and all these things? There would be the big plan and then we focus on the communication aspect of it as well.

Lizzie Mintus: I want to touch on the why part. I think I always talk to people who are making decisions, getting a new job, trying to get a promotion, relocating, and starting a business, hiring, whatever it is, it's really important to consider the why and like you said, what's the objective? What are you really trying to get out of this? But I think figuring out what you want can be really challenging sometimes in your career.

So are there any tools or resources that you have for how people can figure out what it is that they want? I know that's a big question.

Dawn Pinkney: What you think it is and where you'll end up can be two different things.

So again, it comes down to putting the focus on it as the first thing, in a meaningful way. Because have you really sat down to figure out what you want? For me, I'll stick something, whether it's a whiteboard in front of me or a Google doc or, my journal, whatever it is. It's getting something out of me to write stuff down. Ask yourself some questions, what do I want in my career? Within the next year, within five years, do I really enjoy what I've been doing? What is it I don't enjoy about what I'm doing?

You've got all the answers inside you, like your intuition is going to guide you. I'd say it's just putting the attention on it and doing the work. Personally, I would do that, get it set in your mind a little bit, step away from it, go for a hike. See what just comes up in your mind, like ideas pop up. That's your intuition. So yeah. And then start fueling it with those.

Lizzie Mintus: I like what you said about stepping away. I feel like if you can have a shower idea, like your subconscious is marinating on it, you put all your conscious effort into it. It's nice to have a plan though, for me as a business owner and type A person, I like to have an idea about where I'm going, but I think if you don't have an idea of where you're going, how will you know what to do?

Dawn Pinkney: Oh, exactly. You may be enjoying your job, but you're a little bit more on autopilot because you're just going from your job to your home life to your job to your home life. That's where it comes into being more strategic about what it is that you want, because when you know what you want, then you can take little mini actions towards that every single day.

Lizzie Mintus: Yeah, just a minute at first, maybe, but at least you're starting.

Dawn Pinkney: Yeah. Just a minute. Or it could be a quick Google search. It could be listening to a podcast in the area that you want to grow in. You can just incorporate that into your day. So you're moving towards it, even if it's something that's off in the future.

Lizzie Mintus: How can people think about setting a reasonable goal that maybe pushes them a little bit. Goal setting is hard because you want it to be achievable so you feel good, but you also want to stretch yourself.

Dawn Pinkney: I think with goals, I would always say, don't be too hard on yourself, because we're all our own biggest critic. Nobody's criticizing me more than I'm criticizing myself. I'm quite driven. So I've got and then I have my lists. Do a list for every day of what I want to accomplish every day.

I used to feel really bad when I didn't accomplish everything on the list. But over time I've eased up on myself because I think you have to acknowledge I made progress. Even if it was a small amount of progress, you made progress. So go easy on yourself and acknowledge that you are making progress and you are always exactly where you're meant to be. We get caught up with time and, oh, I'm not moving fast enough and this, that, and the other. But we also talked about flow? You want to be in your flow. You don't want to be rushing and forcing. So I feel like just go easy enough if you're like us and you've got loads of goals. Easing up, recognizing the progress and feeling good about that and knowing that things are falling into place because you're taking small actions every day. You're exactly where you're meant to be.

And I would say if you're on the other side of that, you've got to start somewhere. If you've got a goal, you chunk it down. Don't be overwhelmed by, I've got this big goal. Putting yourself under pressure to achieve the big goal. Chunk it down, break it into really tiny little things. And then do those little tiny things. One little tiny thing a day is all you need. Just start there. Eventually you'll grow into more tiny things a day, but I think one tiny thing a day is a good way to go towards your overall goal.

Lizzie Mintus: That's great advice. I want to talk about your podcast. Can you share more?

Dawn Pinkney: Sure. When I bumped into you at Gamesbeat, that was before I started my podcast, right? Since then, I've started it and I'm loving it. As we were talking about before the show here, it's a real fun thing to do. So if anyone's thinking about doing it, they should absolutely do it. The other day I was thinking actually, what you realize when you get into podcasting is the space is so crowded and I almost see podcasting is an extension of your personal brand, right? It's another social media platform. So you got Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and now you got Spotify, Apple. It's almost like that but in a much more engaging way, interviewing people.

My podcast is called Hero of Circumstance. I'm interviewing people about difficult circumstances that they've overcome in their lives. One of the topics has been layoff in the video games industry, and I interview people in the video games industry. One of the topics has been layoff, The other that's emerging right now is entrepreneurship, because it takes a lot to, to do that. And the learnings that entrepreneurs have to share are useful for any professional to hear, whether they could apply that to their circumstance of being out of work, or their circumstance of being more strategic within their career. And then just tough circumstances in general, because again, what it takes to go through that, the habits that you develop, the strategies that you learn, that's just really good to be able to share with other people. And I love interviewing people and hearing about that. So yeah, that's the podcast.

Lizzie Mintus: Podcasting is fun. I like to ask people questions. When I was a little kid, my parents would always take me places with them just so I could talk to people for them because I was always out going and I talked to everybody. I know the lady at the hardware store's name and she knows my name and she gets me a little balloon. You're great at it too. And I feel like it's where we're meant to be. I'm excited.

Dawn Pinkney: Yeah, that's perfect that you're doing the podcast and that it works with your business as well. Like the two worked out as, and it's so nice to hear how that was coming up for you in childhood and now here you are doing it.

Lizzie Mintus: Yeah, recruiting too. I'm just talking to people, helping them figure out what they want, maybe telling them the hard truth. But those are things I do and I like, so I'm so happy to be here.

I want to hear about your learnings as an entrepreneur. What's been the biggest surprise and what have you learned on your journey?

Dawn Pinkney: Wow. I learned that it was way harder than I ever thought it would be. And I had worked in startups. So just so you know, I worked for a couple of Bay Area startups for two years and that was on my route as well as, my journey to, to become an entrepreneur myself cause I thought it's good to be in that, learn how to run a business and. Those startups were hard, but being out for yourself, it's super hard. You are constantly pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone every single day.

The fact that I've got a podcast, I didn't start this thinking, I'd really love to have a podcast, but that was something that just came up with flow. And at the time it came up, I was open to it. But I remember at some point early last year, a friend of mine had said, Oh yeah, you should do a podcast. And I was like, no, I'm not doing any of that. I don't like that. And then here I am doing it. So yeah, I ended up doing a bunch of things that I didn't know I'd be doing, pushing myself outside of my comfort zone.

Harder than I thought. I thought it was going to be easier. There's just so much to do. Biggest thing is my time. So I just really have to be careful with how I'm spending my time every day. The amount of things that you have to do for your own business is just endless. So picking and choosing, because you just can't be good, you can't be across everything at once. But then it's been fantastic with just expansion and networking and becoming more aware of what I wasn't already aware of.

Dawn Pinkney: Even within my local community, all the people I'm meeting and connecting with other business owners, it's like a whole other world. I'm really loving it. And like I said, it is nice to be doing what I like doing, and if I don't like doing something, that's not the right thing for right now, or as you said, that's something that you move to someone else, because I have a trade now as well.

So I have a service that I give to other people and that's been really great as well. I often used to think, if everything went away, like all the structures that we've built went away and we're back to farming or whatever it is, what is it that I have to offer? If I just got plonked into some village that's off the grid tomorrow, what have I got to offer? I'm good at corralling people and getting them to do something, my whole career in production and video games. But now what I love as a life coach is that's a skill, like that's something I can offer.

So if I was plunked into a village tomorrow, I'd be able to coach everyone. That's something I can do to trade goods and services. That's a rewarding thing that's come out of it as well. There's just been those moments where I've just had extreme frustration and I've just been like, ah, this isn't working. And then out of that has just come like more ideas to push myself forwards.

Lizzie Mintus: Congrats.

Dawn Pinkney: Yeah. How about you?

Lizzie Mintus: The best part about entrepreneurship, what I've learned, it's really hard. And yes, you could also work forever. And to find people that are really smart, like you have to find a really smart CFO. What I found to work for me, I found a smart business coach and smart mentors and people who are really good at the things that I'm not really good at because I'm good at corralling people. I'm good at talking to people. I'm the visionary of the business, but I am not going to do busy work. I am not going to do all this documentation. I don't do spreadsheets, right? That stuff makes me die.

I'm not happy and I'm not in flow and I don't feel good when I'm doing it. And at first when you start your business you're doing everything, but eventually you can give it away. That business and life really correlate and you have to think, what do I want for my life? What do I want for my business? And how do they work together? Because it's really, interchangeable.

But if it's good, you're helping people, right? That must be the most fulfilling thing. You're a life coach. And when you help people with their life, it's awesome. And when I help people find a job, it's the best. This is why I do that thing. So I think you have to know your purpose. Otherwise you're not going to be able to have a business and keep going. It's going to be pretty hard.

Dawn Pinkney: Absolutely. Yeah, definitely.

Lizzie Mintus: I have one final question. Who has been your biggest mentor or help in your career. It can be from a long time ago. It can be recently when you started your business. And what did they tell you that really stuck with you?

Dawn Pinkney: There isn't any one specific person, there's just been so many people. And I think that's what I'm most grateful for. I'm surrounded by people that are supportive in what I'm doing. I have fantastic friends that believe in me. My family believe in me. The one that took me by surprise the most was my dad actually. So I spent some time with him in Thailand early last year when I was wrapping up my studies and on the verge of launching my business. My dad is he's in his early eighties. He just was like, what's a life coach. Can you learn from that? Why do people need a life coach? So after spending enough time educating him on what it was, he completely did like a 180 and has become my dadager. He came up with my business name.

We spent two weeks brainstorming, the two of us, all these clever names that it could be. At the end of the two weeks, we were having breakfast one morning and he said, how about Marjorie Dawn Coaching. It has a nice ring to it. Marjorie is my middle name. So he came up with that. This whole background that you're seeing here and me sat in this chair, that's all my dad. So he lives in Thailand and we did it remotely, but it took weeks. I would send him a picture nearly every day. I've got the whole catalog of photos of like from my first zoom background and all the transitions, to get to where it is now. It was his idea for me to have a chair to sit in like this.

And the first video that I put out online was back and forth with my dad. He was reviewing it because he would just go to town. giving me all the criticisms. That was just amazing for me. And my creative director as well, who designed my logo and website has been amazing. She came along, Shauna, very early on and just having my dad and Shauna just believe in me so strongly and just see the vision of what I could become, it meant so much. And then just everyone coming in along the way, has just strengthened that. Every single day I've got, I just feel like I've got a whole family. of support around me and I wouldn't be able to do it otherwise.

Lizzie Mintus: That's so fulfilling. Congratulations. The other thing that's so hard is making a website and coming up with a logo and coming up with a company name. It sounds easy, but it's not. Checking all the trademarks and everything. It worked for you.

We've been talking to Dawn Pinkney, who is CEO of Marjorie Dawn Coaching. Dawn, where can people go to learn more about you and your coaching services?

Dawn Pinkney: You can find me on LinkedIn, just search for Dawn Pinkney and you can also contact me via my website, Marjorie Dawn Coaching. com. You can find my email address on there, or there's a way for you to book a synergy session with me for free. I'll meet with you for 30 minutes just to talk about where you're at. If you don't want to move forwards after that, you can just walk away hassle free, but you'll benefit from the time for me, no matter what. You can do that all via my website.

Lizzie Mintus: Thank you so much.

Thanks so much for listening to the show this week. To catch all the latest from His Waldo, you can follow us on LinkedIn. Be sure to click subscribe to get future episodes. We'll see you next time.

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